Calm in the Aftermath
by Candaru
Summary: After the battle with Stain, Izuku has trouble staying asleep in his hospital bed. He's not the only one. (Originally posted to AO3. Takes place after E31, oneshot, no slash, rated T for safety. The usual brotp fluff.)


(A/N: This was originally posted on AO3, as my first AO3 fic. It will probably also be my last, with the exception of my Layton Big Bang fic. From what I can tell, AO3 is infinitely better than FFN in every single way EXCEPT that there are virtually no comments/reviews, which is... literally the entire reason to post writing in the first place. sooo.)

(Original A/N: If anything seems OOC at all, I blame it on the children being medicated and not because I wrote this directly after watching episode 31 before having a complete grasp on the characters. *Disclaimer: I haven't read the manga, so no manga spoilers, please!)

* * *

Izuku Midoriya was not able get to sleep.

Well, it wasn't exactly that he wasn't able to _get_ to sleep. The problem was _staying_ asleep once his eyes shut and the hospital around him was no longer visible. His body was exhausted, but his mind was still reeling from the events that had transpired only hours earlier. Villain training exercises were one thing. Fighting a group of real villains with real powers alongside professionals was another. But getting beaten black and blue in a dark alleyway while trying to protect your friends from a blade-wielding, blood-licking, accomplished murderer without knowing if anybody else was even on their way to help you and the three other paralyzed, almost-dead people who took turns getting slashed until they fell to the red-stained cement? That was an experience too terrifying to wipe out of a mind with ease.

The green-haired boy groaned quietly as he rolled onto his side, only for his injured left leg to scream out in pain. He was lucky to even be alive, but his body didn't seem to appreciate that at the moment. Whenever he put pressure on any of his wounds, a vision of how he received the wound would flash in his vision, like a lightbulb that left an afterimage burned in his brain. The battle had been so fast-paced that he'd hardly had time to keep up with what was happening while in the battle itself, but now that the whole ordeal was over he remembered each too-vivid detail with clarity.

"Midoriya?"

The patient bolted up and barely kept himself from screaming in alarm at the sudden sound. He forced his tensed muscles (which were aching again, lovely) to relax as he registered the voice behind him. Rolling over, he rubbed his eyes and whispered back to the boy in the hospital bed adjacent to his.

"Yeah?"

"Oh." The boy was silent for a moment. "I wanted to know if you were awake." His voice was incredibly quiet, but in the dead, silent night, it still sounded very loud.

"I am. I can't fall asleep." It occurred to Midoriya that that was kind of a lie. "Or… can't stay asleep."

"Are you having nightmares, as well?" the other boy asked after a pause. He stared at the ceiling instead of the person he was talking to, so from where Midoriya was lying, it looked like his hair was solid red.

"Yeah," he admitted simply. "I can't stop thinking about the battle."

"Me neither." There was another long moment of silence. It was hard to tell whether the pauses were from awkwardness, fatigue, or a combination of the two. "Iida, what about you?"

There was no response from the third boy in the room, who lay motionless in the bed across from Todoroki's. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but he seemed to be lying with his bandaged arms crossed over his chest in a weird way that reminded Midoriya of an Egyptian coffin. He shuddered at the thought.

"He's still asleep," he murmured to Todoroki, partially in case he couldn't tell and partially to assure himself that Iida was fine.

"Mm. I can see that." Todoroki turned slightly, finally turning to actually look at Midoriya. He stared quietly for a moment with uneven eyes, then asked in an even quieter voice than he was already using, "Do you think it would be possible for someone to break through the window?"

The smaller boy looked over at the giant panes of glass behind Todoroki, then down at Todoroki himself, who had a too-familiar look of uncertainty that was visible even in the dark. That, or Midoriya's eyes were adjusting after being open for a while.

"I… I think hospital windows are reenforced," he replied in a weak attempt to be comforting. "Not that it'd make much difference to a villain with a quirk that could pass through walls…"

"True. But at least then I wouldn't have glass shards raining down on me," Todoroki stated.

Midoriya forced a hesitant smile. "If that happened, you'd probably still survive. I'd be the one to die just from a little broken glass."

"If that happened, I'd be mad at you."

"What for?"

Todoroki paused and returned the faintest trace of a smile. "Wasting the opportunity I gave you. I saved your life, remember?"

"Ah, right. Thanks for that, by the way."

The conversation felt… off, somehow, but Midoriya couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the battle, or just the fact that it was probably midnight and everyone in the room was heavily medicated. (Now that he thought about it, that would explain Iida's heavy sleeping and weird position, too.) But at least the talking was keeping him awake.

"…Midoriya?"

The smaller boy turned. "Yeah?"

"Did you have nightmares as a kid?"

A small flicker of a memory about childhood bullies tried to surface, but the green-haired boy pushed it down. This wasn't like that. "Mhm. A lot."

"What did you do to deal with them?"

That wasn't exactly the follow-up question he had been expecting, but he rolled with it. "Well, I usually went into my parents' room. For some reason, sleeping with my mom always stopped me from having bad dreams. I guess I felt safe."

"And she always let you sleep with her?" Todoroki asked, a trace of unbelief in his voice. "Until how old?"

That made Midoriya a little embarrassed. "She never told me I couldn't anymore, although I stopped on my own when I was ten."

"Ten?!"

The memory from before flickered stronger. "I know, I know…"

Todoroki seemed to realize what Midoriya was thinking. "No, it's fine. I just… can't imagine my own parents doing that." He looked down. "I used to go into my mom's room, too, when I was really little, but as I got older I felt more and more unwelcome. She finally made me stop when I was six."

"Oh." Midoriya was quiet. He remembered the horrible stories about Todoroki's past, and didn't want to pry… but it also felt like Todoroki wanted him to ask something. He didn't know what, though. And he had misread people before…

"Um…"

Midoriya jumped a little at the voice. He had to learn to stop getting lost in his thoughts like that. "What is it?"

"…Nevermind."

Midoriya bit his lip. That answer confirmed that he needed to say something, but it didn't tell him what.

"It's quiet, isn't it?" he asked, taking a random stab at a topic. "We're both whispering, but our voices sound so loud I keep being afraid we're going to wake Iida up."

"Same here," Todoroki said, sitting up to look at the jet-powered boy. "He's out like a log, though."

"I think they gave him heavier medication than either of us," Midoriya noted with worry. Then he added, "I'm honestly kind of jealous. It seems like he's sleeping well."

Todoroki snickered quietly. "That hardly seems fair, but I have to agree with you." Suddenly, his face lit up. (Midoriya's eyes were definitely adjusting, because he could see gears turning in Todoroki's head.) "Do you think if we fought each other, the nurses would have to give us more meds and then we could get some sleep?"

"What? That's a horrible idea," Midoriya whisper-laughed.

"It's worth a shot, isn't it?" Todoroki grinned and, to Midoriya's surprise, started climbing out of bed. But although he started walking over to Midoriya's bedside, his posture and expression didn't imply that he was actually about to attack. "I'll fire-punch you," he said in a rare, joking tone of voice, "and then you can punch me back with that super smash."

"No way," Midoriya whispered back.

"Well, you'll have to do something to block my attack," the red-and-white haired boy said, throwing a slow, fake punch at his friend.

"Or I could just do this!" Midoriya said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him onto the bed as if he were going to smash him to the floor.

"Ow, ow, my arm…"

"S-sorry!" Midoriya exclaimed, wincing.

"It's fine. But don't let your guard down, or I'll throw this!" A bit faster than before, Todoroki slung his right arm around Midoriya's neck and squeezed him gently.

"Hey, no fair! Aiming for the neck is playing dirty," Midoriya recited, remembering the rules of fighting a villain. "If you can do that, then I can do this." He started to rib Todoroki's side, but then froze. Todoroki winced in pain as Midoriya felt the rough bandages under the thin hospital cloth. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry—"

"No, it's fine," Todoroki said, "that was a good move. Ow…"

"Are you sure you're okay?" Midoriya asked worriedly. "I can go find one of the nurses, but…"

"No, I'm fine, really." Todoroki smiled feebly. "Better than having my arm cut off, anyway."

The images of watching Stain rush towards Todoroki with a sword to his shoulder and being helpless to do anything washed over Midoriya. He shuddered. "Please don't talk about that. I think that scare alone was enough for a lifetime."

"Hah, maybe you shouldn't send people your contact info without any explanation, then," Todoroki laughed in a way that was far too weak. " _That_ was a scare. The minute I realized you were in trouble, I didn't even know what you were doing, or who you were fighting, or if I could make it on time, or… or if it was too late, or…" As he talked, his face slowly contorted into a look of horror, and Midoriya finally noticed how tightly he was gripping the bedsheet.

"H-hey, it's okay, we're all okay, now," Midoriya reassured him. By instinct, he wrapped his arms around the taller boy in a loose hug. Todoroki froze up. Midoriya mentally slapped himself. "O-oh, sorry, I-I forgot about your—"

Suddenly, he felt himself pulled into the other boy's chest by a strong pair of arms, one of which was bandaged from the wrist to the elbow. The injured parts of his own body cried out in pain, but he was too distracted by surprise to notice.

"Todoroki…?"

"I'm sorry," the teen whispered with a cracked voice, not letting go, "I just— I can't stop thinking— I thought you— I was so scared I—!" He winced in pain and moved one hand up to his own head, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I think these meds are—"

"Do you want to stay?" Midoriya suddenly blurted out. The words tumbled out before he even knew what they meant, but Todoroki stopped talking and nodded wordlessly, so they must've been the right thing to say for once.

The conversation-slash-pretend-fight was cut short. Neither boy said anything as Todoroki climbed under the covers (which didn't cover both him and Midoriya entirely, but he didn't seem to care) and lay his head down on the corner of the pillow. His left hand was loosely entwined with Midoriya's right; both bandaged arms lay against each other, but not pressed together so hard they hurt. The night was quiet, and everyone's breathing seemed loud, even after all the whispering. It still took a while before either teen managed to fall asleep. But when they finally did, their eyes remained shut.

Izuku Midoriya's visions stayed away for the rest of the night.


End file.
